Government Works Badly–If We Refuse to Invest in It
At the Bipartisan Policy Center's Housing Summit earlier this week, Shelterforce got to interview former HUD secretaries Mel Martinez and Henry Cisneros (we'll publish that interview here next week). One of the questions we asked was how to handle the fact that the American electorate often seems to have a bias, not so much against […]
Regions Can’t Live By Oxygen Alone
Jack Jensen, an affordable housing and green builder in Ithaca, N.Y., is grumpy about Smart Growth. Specifically, he's pissed off at the assumption that urban infill preserves green space. As […]
Income for Everyone?
If you wanted to come up with a totally cockamamie idea to attribute to someone to smear them as unrealistic bleeding-heart socialist, what would you come up with? Possibly “the […]
The Dangerous Rhetoric of Escaping to Opportunity
At the Philly Federal Reserve conference last spring, in the “Future of CDCs“ discussion our own Harold Simon moderated, Joe Kriesberg, director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, […]
So About that Deconcentrating Poverty Thing…
Land of Opportunity Interactive has a marvelous interactive video (click here for description of what that means) called “Bricks and Sticks: Public vs. Private“ that uses footage from New Orleans to force […]
Is the News on Homelessness Good or Bad?
So there's bad news and good news, it seems, on the topic of homelessness these past few months. It seems like we're seeing another wave (did it ever stop exactly?) […]
What Happens Once the Artists Arrive?
Conventional wisdom says that artists and gay people are tend to be pioneers in distressed neighborhoods, signs that change is ’a coming. While there have been some funny, and likely […]
Turns Out Innovation Is Officially Overrated
Many nonprofits and social enterprises face constant pressure to be “innovative,” whether from funders or charitable business leaders who want to offer their expertise from the world of venture capital […]
Beware the Scammers
This weekend I encountered a representative of an energy service company on my porch. He was flashing a badge at me and telling me that because I hadn't responded to […]
Actually United States
Americans are a people hopelessly divided by culture wars and fundamental disagreements about the role and appropriate size of government. You know this; I know this. Everyone knows this. In […]
Poor Folk Are All Cost Burdened, No Matter What Their Housing Cost
Today the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard releases its annual State of the Nation's Housing report. As always, it is chock full of useful information about the trends […]
Planned Shrinkage by Thirst?
Even the much beleagured CEO of Nestle, who has been accused of trying to privatize the water resources of poor communities for the benefit of its bottled-water profits, officially says that […]